


L.A. Women (Full of Protein, with a Hint of Sweetness)

by mrasaki



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Ms. Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dogs, Friendship, Gen, Girl Power, Slice of Life, team-ups of awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2815307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrasaki/pseuds/mrasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I ought to run you in for contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” Detective Caudle breathes into her face, his temper not improved by being called out at the single digits of the morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	L.A. Women (Full of Protein, with a Hint of Sweetness)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [returnsandreturns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/returnsandreturns/gifts).



It isn't as if Kate is completely opposed to higher learning; she’s heard all the arguments about _getting ahead_ and _making something of yourself_ , but they never seemed to apply to her. Everything useful that she knows, she either taught herself or learned on the streets. Knowing the value of pi doesn't save your life when some idiot in clashing brightly colored tights and with more powers than brains tries to ruin your day.

But still, she has to concede that doing more than a few semesters at NYU might’ve helped here.

“How does a millennial reach the ancient age of twenty and never learn how to use computers properly?”

“I know how to use computers,” Kate protests, not looking up from the monitor. “What the hell are all these – all I want to find out is the provenance of that Chinese vase, and what does ‘The Westward Influence of Chinese Art from the 14th to 18th Centuries’ have to do with it? Computers are the _worst_.” She clicks the mouse furiously.

“One, that is a _Korean_ vase. From the early Choson period. And two– “

Fortunately, Kate's saved by a commotion in the corridor. “That asshole! I’ll kill her!”

Marcus gets up from his armchair and cracks the door. “Is there a problem, Professor Winther?”

A bespectacled tiny man in a truly atrocious sweater vest whirls, his face so purple veined that Kate spends a moment trying to remember the signs of a stroke or heart attack. She saw it once on a sign or poster somewhere, maybe? But – “Look! Look!” tiny professor is screaming at Marcus, waving a crumpled paper in his hand.

Marcus has his hands out, making patting motions as if he's placating a particularly deranged cat. Then there are more words, more yelling, and finally, more words at significantly less volume. Kate tunes them both out – drama in academia, what can be more boring -- and continues scrolling through the database, skimming articles on topics that probably only three other people in the world know or even care about.

“…stolen! She stole it!”

Kate perks up. With one super awesome, super dignified superhero bound over the desk, she pops up like a jack-in-the-box at the professor’s elbow. “What did who steal?” she asks brightly, as the man gasps and clutches his heart. “And will you pay me to get it back?”

**

“Get out of the way! This is bad, very very bad!” Kate shouts as she sprints down the corridor, taking corners and stairs at reckless speed. The monster’s crashing passage through brick and wood walls shakes the building and sends ceiling tiles and smashed up copy machines cascading around her. What she wouldn't give for a few of Clint’s trick arrows; the standard tourney shafts she managed to wangle from the sporting goods store had only pissed it off.

Welcome to Kate Bishop Investigations. She came to Los Angeles to get away from the craziness and drama of New York – and family, both adopted and genetic – but this is her spectacularly unboring life.

In other words, just another Tuesday.

She dodges into a classroom and slams the door behind her. There's a long bank of windows on the opposite wall; she can climb out, get down on the ground floor, lead it away from the building and any people --

“Um,” someone – young, female – says. “Do you need help?”

“No?” Kate locks the door against the approaching crashes and roars and screams. The lock is a flimsy thing, meant to keep desperate students begging extensions on their term papers away from their professors, and is definitely not going to hold for long. She notes in passing, preoccupied with looking for anything sturdier than student desks and chairs to fortify the door with, that the speaker is a skinny teenage girl, not that much younger than herself, clutching a beat-up backpack. The girl is also looking at the developing situation – pucker factor definitely one hundred – with wide but unafraid eyes. “I don’t want to scare you and all, but there is something _seriously really bad_ –“

Something heavy and hard rattle-slams against the door. It holds, the frame creaking and cracking and little tufts of dust and splinters puffing out with each blow. The small glass window in its center shatters, and then with one last room-shaking thud, a jagged hole the size of a grapefruit is punched through the wood. An antennae – a very large, very _gross_ antennae pokes through, probes around, withdraws. Ugh, insects. Why, why, _why_ , with all the legs and the eyes – ugh. Forget trick arrows, what she wouldn't give for a giant can of Raid.

Ooh. That's a thought to file away for later: insecticide in a trick arrow. Clint'll love it. Suck it, Mr. Boomerang Arrow What the Hell is a Boomerang Arrow For.

A mandible appears. The ant – because that's what it is, what it _was_ , when the whatever-it-was from the broken jar fell on it – starts chewing away the door like it's made of candy, widening the hole.

“Out the window!” Kate seizes the girl's wrist, dragging her up to the long bank of windows. They're on the fourth floor, but there are bushes at ground level, if Kate remembers right. It isn't ideal; generally Kate leaves the _falling off stuff_ to Clint, but the current options are 1. get munched to death or 2. dive out the window. She squashes the thought that it'd be nice to have America – or anyone from the team, for that matter – around to back her up. She hasn't seen or talked to most of her team in a while. Her fault, not theirs, part of the _get her head and life back together and oh yeah, get a tan_ she'd intended when she came all the way out here to the other side of the country.

But now there's drag. Her grip slips. The girl twists her arm away from Kate's grasp. “Let me go,” the girl protests. “I can --”

“Can we argue about this later?” Kate starts shoving at the windows. They're stuck fast, probably haven't been opened since the 80's, and she swears. Behind them, Godzilla Ant jams itself through the gaping hole in the door, its clicking mandibles and tapping antennae extra super gross now, closer up. An arrow is already sticking out of its eye. Kate readies to add another in the other eye, even though it'll likely just piss it off some more like the first, and oh god, Kate does not want her epitaph to be _The Other Hawkeye Eaten to Death by Giant Ant_. Ants are pretty fragile under normal circumstances and generally she has zero problems with them, but at ten billionth the normal size, this is the Godzilla of all ants and thank god the goop didn't fall on a spider, because at that point that'd be the Avengers' problem (she'd _make_ it their problem, especially Clint's, because he always laughs at her when she makes him squish the ones that invade the bathroom), because nope, absolutely nope, she hates spiders and a giant one of those would be a 'nuke from space' scenario.

A giant hand whistles by her ear and slams Godzilla Ant across the hallway into the far wall with a loud crunch. It falls to the floor on its back amongst the remains of shattered door and drywall, twitching, its legs curling up. After a long moment, it goes still.

The hand retracts back to its owner. Giant hand. Giant ants. It's a day for 'giant', apparently. “Shrink. Shrink! Uh, disembiggen! _Dis_ —” the girl hisses at her hand, shooting Kate a furtive, embarrassed look. And, oh hey. It does.

“That's different,” Kate says, both impressed and just a little grossed out.

Giant Hand Girl blushes. A split second later her eyes round in recognition and she lets out a little shriek. “Oh my god. _Oh my god_. Hawkeye, right? Oh my god. You're Hawkeye!”

“The bow and arrows a dead giveaway? The purple, maybe?” The caustic words and her aviators shield her face, because _oh my god, stay cool, Kate_. It isn't often that people recognize Kate, at least not the people she wants recognizing her. “You don't happen to know Wiccan, do you?” she says in the most bored tone she can summon. “Short guy, messy black hair, raggedy cape, kinda emo? Powers work sorta the same way? Uh, hello?”

The girl seems to have vaporlocked, her mouth hanging open, eyes big and starry. “Hawkeye, civilian name Katherine Bishop,” she begins reciting breathlessly. “Agility, ten. Strength, four. Intelligence, eight. Sidekick of Clint Barton, also known as Hawkeye --”

“Whoa, hey,” Kate interrupts, unsure if she should be creeped out here. “ _Sidekick?_ No, no. Partner, maybe. Extremely unimpressed mentoree, usually. Babysitter, always. But sidekick, that's a negative, Lone Ranger. Banish that from your vocabulary. Also, the name's Kate.”

She doesn't think the girl heard a word; the girl draws herself up and does a full-body squee, arm flails and dancing on tiptoes and everything. “You're on my superhero fantasy league team!”

“Ah – Thanks?” She's not going to ask who else is on the team, she is _not_. She is going to be cool. Cool, and suave, and absolutely, totally not a dork.

The girl visibly recomposes herself, but her eyes stay alight with excitement. “So what is up with that?” she asks, trying on a Very Serious Tone. Hooks a thumb – a normal sized thumb – at the dead insect. “I mean, I've like, fought a giant alligator before, but giant insects?”

“One, sadly that is not the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me, and two, what is up with you? What’s with the hand thing?” Kate asks. Maybe it comes out a little too blunt, but she's gotta know. Simplest answer means the girl's probably a mutant, but she might’ve been bitten by a spider or something. Or be somebody’s reincarnated fantasy baby.

“Oh.” The girl hesitates. “I'm Kamala. I uh, go by Ms. Marvel. When I'm in costume. Which I'm not, because this happened kind of sudden?”

Kate opens her mouth to ask her how she can be Ms. Marvel when Ms. Marvel is currently _Captain_ Marvel (and in space, according to Billy, who pays attention to these things like the nerd he is), and does Danvers even know this girl adopted her name, then shuts it, because of all the people to lecture someone about adopting other people's names? Not Kate, that's for sure.

The sound of sirens rises in the distance, and the thunder of voices and running feet coming towards them. Time to go, really, really far away. Questions – and there are so many – will have to wait.

“Hey,” Kamala says, as if reading Kate’s mind. “I'm coming with you?” She squares her shoulders before Kate can tell her _uh, no?_ and she says again, her voice firming, “I'm coming with you. Because if you're going to be fighting more of those things, I can totally help.”

“Uh.” Kate considers her. Maybe. Kamala had held her own – okay, okay, _saved Kate’s bacon_ , because Kate is fair like that and always gives credit where credit is due, and Kamala evidently knows what she’s doing. And besides, Kate’s never one to turn down offers of help, because who is she, _Clint?_

Evidently taking Kate’s silence as a progression towards a definitive no, Kamala rushes on, “Because, I mean, I totally just saved your life. Not that you owe me or anything, but. And, if you're going to be fighting more of those things...” She fidgets. “You know, Wolverine was a lot less scary than you.”

Okay. Kate's not sure she should feel flattered. “Wolverine.”

“Well, he was nice to me. I think he liked me. I met him when he was looking for a missing girl.” She shrugs. “And, I think he has a thing for teenage girls? Wait, wait, that sounds really dirty, I meant, he has a soft spot for young girls. No, wait.”

“Uh huh.” Kate glances down the hallway where the voices and footsteps are coming closer. “This is a super interesting conversation, and I'd love to keep having it, so why don’t you hold that thought.”

**

Five minutes later, Kate makes her way as unobtrusively as she can through the mess of campus security and actual cops milling about importantly and holding back students and faculty rubbernecking outside the building. The quiver and bow get a number of curious looks, but she keeps her best New York _Got something to say?_ expression on her face and says, “Writing a dissertation on the evolution of longbows to the modern day,” to anyone who seems to take closer interest, and just keeps walking. The last thing she needs is to be stopped and questioned about the truly impressive amount of gratuitous property damage her end run through Boyer Hall caused; she has a paying job to do, and interrogations – particularly by Detective Caudle, who she can hear yelling only feet away – waste valuable time, entertaining though they are.

Kamala trails after her, clutching her backpack and looking around with interested eyes. “Wait,” she hisses at Kate after a while. “Aren't you going to tell me what's happening? What was that back there?”

“Not here,” Kate says side-mouth, but it's too late. Someone seizes her by the scruff of her neck like a particularly naughty puppy and growls, “You. Where do you think you're going?” The voice is irritated, roughened by sleep deprivation and entirely too many coffees and cigarettes. She'd know that voice anywhere. “Detective Caudle,” she says, hanging onto her innocent smile with determination. But the signs don't look favorable; his left eye is twitching, and the toothpick he's chewing is already nearly gnawed down to a nubbin.

“Why,” he says through his teeth, “Am I not surprised that you're here?”

“I'm here on a college tour,” Kamala interrupts, rescuing Kate before she can pop off with any number of smart-aleck things she's never able to help saying that generally lands her in about a thousand times the trouble than when she started, like _If you want me out of your hair for good, five thousand for a first class plane ticket sounds about right, but you look like you need the money more than me._ Kamala turns big brown eyes on the detective, oozing sincerity from every pore. Kate likes her already. “She's showing me around campus.”

Caudle squints at her. “Miss, she doesn't even go here. As far as I can tell she only exists to be a pain in my keister.”

“I'm TA-ing. For Professor Marcus Grove,” Kate volunteers. That much is true, even if she isn't particularly good at it, because computers are the worst. 

The twitch spreads to the other eye. “Is that so.”

“It's so,” Kate tells him cheerfully. “A girl's gotta make a living, in between being a super awesome private investigator.”

He growls as if to himself, then abruptly lets Kate go. “Hey, did you see that giant ant that wrecked the building?” Kate demands. “Why don't you go find out where it came from instead of harassing innocent young ladies?”

“'Ladies,'” he repeats with disbelief. “ _Ladies._ Uh huh. Why do I get the feeling that you know exactly where it came from?”

“Why would I know anything about that?”

“You're telling me that you were meddling in –” Kate holds up a finger until he rolls his eyes and corrects himself, “ _investigating_ , excuse the hell out of me, a completely separate case when a giant insect just happened to start destroying the UCLA campus.”

Kate beams and nods.

“Ahhh.” He pinches his forehead. “Ah, jeez. It is way too late in the day and about twelve Tums too far for this bullshit right now.”

“Don't worry,” Kate says over her shoulder as she exits stage right, in a totally smooth way. “Weirder things have happened.”

“You get out of my city!” he yells after her, but it's colored with resignation, so she knows he doesn't mean it, not really.

Kamala had walked on a little further to take a call while Kate argued with the detective, and by the looks of it, the conversation isn't going well. “But _ammi,_ I'm fine, okay? Don't worry!” A pause, then an infinitely weary sigh. “Ammi – no, ammi – what do you mean, where's Aamir? He's, uh...” she spies Kate and gives her a pinched expression that Kate knows down to her very soul; she wears it herself every time she talks to her dad and whatever barely-legal gold-digger of the moment he has on his arm. “Aamir went to get coffee. Why don't you trust me? What? Aw no, don't cry...”

Kate removes herself to a discreet distance and concentrates on combing rubble out of her hair.

A minute later, Kamala joins her, looking glum. “I have to go.”

“Home?”

Deep sigh. “Yeah. My parents saw the breaking news report and now they're freaking out. I gotta find my brother and convince him to talk them off the ledge. If he isn't in uber trouble too.”

“So you really are here for a college tour?”

“Kinda. Well, sorta. My brother has friends here, and I thought California would be a cool place to attend university, and he's pretending he wants to go back to school too, so. He's the only reason why my mom and dad let me come without them, and I talked him into letting me wander around by myself. Which worked out great, obviously.”

“That's nice. To have a family who cares about you like that.” Kate tries not to let the envy show in her voice. Sure it must be annoying to have parents dogging your every step when you just want to go out and be you, but when what she has is Clint – who is a good guy, when he isn't being an utter avoidant shitbag – and a credit card substituting for her dad, well. There's her crew too, but half of them are making a second determined go at civilian life, Cassie is dead, and the other half are – somewhere, probably another dimension, and besides, she hadn't even told them she was leaving.

She stares into the lowering sun, blinking hard behind her glasses.

“Yeah. But they don't let me do anything. I understand why, but then I have to lie, you know? To help people.” Kamala's phone pings. She looks at the screen and brightens. “It's my friend.” She answers it, listens for a moment, and then practically shrieks, “I know! but – listen. Just listen! I met Hawkeye! We killed a giant bug together! She's so awesome! Shut up, I'm not lying, I'll prove it.” She holds out the phone to Kate. “Can you do me a favor? Bruno doesn't believe me, can you say something to him?”

“Hey,” Kate says into the speaker, bemused. “Be cool, kids, and stay off drugs. And stuff like that.”

There's a pause. “Isn't Hawkeye supposed to be a guy?”

Kamala snatches the phone back as Kate replies, grinning, “Well, let me tell you about this alternate Earth,” and hisses, “No, there are _two_ Hawkeyes, oh my god. I will talk to you later, thanks _so_ much,” and hangs up, blushing furiously.

She busies herself stuffing her phone into her bag. When she looks up again, Kate is holding out a business card.

 _Kate Bishop Investigations,_ it says. _Hero for Hire (no seriously)._

Kamala stares at it. A smile starts to grow on her face.

“I printed those myself. Cool, huh?” Kate says, and grins. “If you're free later on, come by. We've got some investigating to do.”

**

The breeze off the ocean is cool and inviting after the heat of the day. Kate sits on top of her trailer, pecking away at the laptop Finch loaned her after tiring of her sneaking in at all hours to borrow their computer and wifi. The cat's sprawled elegantly across the keyboard, throwing her evil looks as she first tries to nudge her aside and then attempts to type around her. Lucky is stretched out next to them, head jammed into the triangle formed by Kate's elbow and armpit, throwing longing looks at the sandwich Kate is absently munching, needing only a sign that says _Forever Hungry_ to complete the picture. “No,” she tells him sternly at an especially pleading whine. “You no-standards-having pizza-loving junkyard mutt.” Lucky looks up and pants happily at her.

“You're lucky you're cute,” she tells him.

There’s a whoosh of air being displaced, accompanied with a loud _POP!_ and suddenly she's surrounded by the reek of dog breath.

She looks over her shoulder and her mouth falls open in surprise. An extremely large dog – if that's what it can be called – is slobbering about five inches away from her face, jowls lifted in a friendly way that exposes all of its teeth. Kamala is riding astride. Obviously deciding that of all the indignities of the night, this is just _one too many,_ the cat sinks all of her claws into Kate's arm and goes yowling off into the dark. Lucky, sandwich temporarily forgotten, goes crazy and Kate grabs him before his barking and growling can devolve into a fight that he will definitely, _definitely_ lose.

Not unlike his owner, come to think of it.

Kamala grins at her. She's in costume now, an outfit obviously cobbled together at home. Kate can dig it, considering her own costume is pretty much a smash of whatever she managed to filch from the Avengers and they'd let her keep, albeit streamlined into something actually _stylish_. 

“Hello,” Kamala says. “I guess this is the right place? It was sort of hard to tell from the address on your card.” Speaking casually, as if she isn't riding a really giant fucking dog-thing that takes up nearly half of the roof and has what looks like a tuning fork on its head. Kate would lay bets that it isn't of any breed ever conceived of on Earth, or maybe even the _galaxy_.

Which, giant dog. Giant, _ugly_ dog. Giant is definitely in fashion today.

“You have a dog too! Aw, poor dog. Don't be scared, Lockjaw won't eat you. At least, I think. He hasn't eaten anyone that I know of.” Kamala rummages in a pocket and holds something out. Slowly, Lucky creeps forward, still keeping an eye on the other dog, and eats it out of her hand. Then apparently deciding that she’s good people, he allows a pet, obviously hoping for more treats. His tail thumps the roof like a drum.

“Uh,” Kate says eloquently. “Did you just… teleport here? You bamfed here on a giant dog? You have a giant bamf-ing dog? ” She puts out a cautious hand for Lockjaw to sniff, and gets a lick right across the face for her pains. “Augh, dog!” The dog pants in ecstatic happiness.

Turning her attention back to the other girl, wiping her face with the back of her hand, she asks, “Sneaking out tonight wasn't a problem, then?”

“Well, my curfew's at midnight, but my brother Aamir goes to bed early and sleeps like the dead, and besides, he doesn't much care what I do as long as I'm safe. If my parents were along on this trip, it’d be a whole other thing.” Kamala shrugs, excitement lighting up her eyes. “So are we going to find out where that giant ant came from?”

Now the dogs are circling each other, tails wagging, sniffing each other, apparently friends. If only people made friends that easily, Kate thinks. Minus all the butt-sniffing, of course.

“Is that – whoa. That is one big dog,” comes a voice from the ground level. Marcus has his hands on his hips, giving her that bemused, quizzical look like he always does. His eyebrows go up when he sees Kamala. “Oh, you have a friend over.” His glance at Kate says, _I didn't know you had other friends in L.A.,_ but it’s leavened by the kindness in his eyes.

Kamala gives a little wave. “Hi. I go by Ms. Marvel.” She glances at Kate. “He’s good people,” Kate says airily, “You can trust him,” so Kamala takes a breath and continues. “My real name’s Kamala.”

Marcus studies her costume for a long moment, returns his gaze to Kate, and says, “You two are up to something.”

“Whatever makes you say that? Okay, okay, we are. Hey, check this out.” Kate picks the laptop back up and types furiously. “Remember Professor Winther? This morning, yelling about how some other prof stole his work?””

Marcus crosses his arms. “Winther.” He sighs. “I think I know where this is going. Continue.”

“So I went over to this Lombardi's office, which by the way, looks like a book monster threw up all over it, and I was digging through the piles – literal piles – of papers all over her desk looking for it, when I knocked over this glass jar.”

“That incident on campus today, that was you. Why am I not surprised.”

“So Winther and Lombardi, both do research in microbiology. Now that the excitement’s died down and everyone’s gone home, we're going to go find out what exactly this professor is up to, because she's got no business making gunk that monster-izes things, especially insects that it accidentally falls on,” Kate finishes triumphantly.

Sighing again, Marcus asks Kamala, “Do you have any powers?”

The sudden question seems to take her off guard. “Uh, yes?” Leaping to her feet, she strikes a heroic pose, somewhat ruining the effect by pursing her lips and punching the air. “Like, I can embiggen, and shrink too, and change shapes. And I have a healing factor. And other things, maybe.”

“And, you have a giant teleporting dog,” Kate adds.

“That too.”

“So...” Marcus says. He sounds thoughtful, hardly fazed by the sudden avalanche of information. If he were a superhero, Kate always privately thinks, his name would be _Master of Zen_. “So you're doing a superhero team-up. You should call yourselves,” he pauses for dramatic effect, eyes twinkling, “'The Special K's.' You know, because your names both begin with—”

“That's terrible,” Kate informs him disapprovingly as he dissolves into helpless laughter. “I thought dad-jokes were above you. That's it, we're going. We're leaving.”

Lucky takes advantage of the distraction and snaps up Kate's forgotten sandwich, wolfing it down in three big bites.

**

The office looks nothing like Marcus’s; instead of elegant furniture tastefully arranged with lush plants placed just so, the piles of papers and haphazardly stacked books and heaps of dust bunnies are still there and even creepier in the dark. It stinks of cigarettes and stale coffee. A bedraggled plant that might've once been an ivy clings tenaciously to life by the dirty window. Even though the mutated ant came barreling out of here like the world's leggiest wrecking ball, it hadn't made any noticeable difference in the overall décor.

Next to a dusty and cobwebby bookcase, lies a broken glass container.

Super.

“I kinda like the name 'Special Ks'.” Kamala says thoughtfully, continuing the semi-argument they've been having in the entire thirty-second teleporty ride here. She peers around. “What are we looking for?”

“Too twee,” Kate whispers back. “And we're looking for anything that seems suspicious.” The rough draft of the plan is mostly, 'get there, look around,' and she's acutely aware that this is probably not going to elicit a favorable reaction, even if she appends, _Improvisation is my specialty._

“You said, 'stole his work,' but does that mean something on paper? Or on a computer? Or maybe it was whatever was in that jar you broke.”

Maybe, Kate realizes, she should've thought about this before.

The lights go on.

They whirl to find a middle-aged woman with rumpled gray hair frowning at them. “What are you doing in my office?” She holds up a hand. “No wait. Let me guess, you're the girl who broke in here earlier, tampered with vital research, and then wrecked most of the microbiology department. I'm right, aren't I? Of course I'm right.”

Now she's regretting leaving Lockjaw downstairs in the lobby. A quick getaway would be good right about now.

“Don't sue me,” Kate says after a moment. “Because I have like, zero money.”

“I'm calling the police.”

“Wait!” Kamala says. “You're going to call the police, after stealing probably illegal research? That doesn't seem smart.”

The woman blinks at them, hand arrested in reaching for the telephone on the wall. “Stolen? Who said it was stolen? and _illegal?_ ” Realization spreads over her face, followed by anger. “I think I know what's going on here. It was Dr. Winther, right? Michael. Oh, Michael. You bastard.”

** 

So that's a bust.

“I ought to run you in for contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” Detective Caudle breathes into her face, his temper not improved by being called out at the single digits of the morning.

"Well," Kamala says, obviously trying to be helpful, "I won't be a minor in like, a year?"

Definitely a bust.

**

“You're not going to get paid for this, are you?”

They're sitting on top of Kate's trailer, staring out over the beach. Her laptop's sitting next to her, waiting for her to get on with entering grades and doing research and whatever other boring TA stuff Marcus wants her to do, but Kate's going to do that tomorrow, along with collecting her payment. “There's going to be payment,” Kate says, never taking her eyes off the inky blackness that is the ocean at night, broken only by the lights of passing ships in the distance. “There will definitely _be_ payment.”

Kamala takes a bite of her ice cream – cookies and cream – elbowing Lockjaw away from the cone. He whuffs sadly and settles back, never taking his eyes off the ice cream for a second. He licks his chops. “That sounds kinda ominous. Assuming that you haven't gone off to the Dark Side, need help?”

Kate licks a stripe of melting black cherry chocolate ice cream off her wrist. “When do you have to go back?”

“To Jersey? Tomorrow night. No wait, what time is it? Tonight. I mean tonight.”

“Mm.” Lucky opens one eye and resettles himself more comfortably against Lockjaw, the bigger dog's hulk protecting him from the incoming ocean breeze. “I don't think I need help in scaring the shit out of a certain scrawny guy who really needs to learn a thing or two about hiring a goddamn superhero to help him flog his latest academic catfight, but I'll let you know.”

“Ant-Man did the shrinking and embiggening thing first and better, anyway.”

Kate grins at her. “I knew I liked you.”


End file.
